Last edited on Jan 12 2013. Submitted by Andy from Maidenhead, Windsor and Maidenhead, UK
on Aug 21 1997.

noun

American. Can be reduced to "septic". Originally it was derogative in meaning and comes (probably) from the English (particularly Cockney) fondness for rhyming slang. As all Americans (including Southerners) have been referred to as Yanks by the British for years, so this is a rhyme derived from that. Nowadays, it is often used matter-of-factly, without any thought to the implied derision. Whether or not it is used as an insult depends entirely upon the way the speaker says it. At the London branch of an American bank, imagine the British employees saying: